Doing this again ...

The meatballs themselves were spot on … i used 2 duck eggs from healthy horizons family farm down the street, breadcrumbs made from drying my favorite bread, and a healthy amount of dried sage from the farmstand, plus some onions and salt and ground pepper. I thought they were spot on.

I think the Betty Crocker sauce recipe makes the meatballs too sweet … next time try using honey or a lot less sugar in proportion. Good though … denises liked them.

Place the bread and onion in a large bowl. Mix to combine so the onion juice soaks the bread.

Add all the remaining Meatball ingredients except the olive oil. Use you hands to mix well.

Measure out a heaped tablespoon and roll lightly to form a ball. Repeat with remaining mixture. (Note 5)

Heat 1½ tbsp olive oil in a large non stick fry pan over medium high heat. Add the meatballs and brown all over - about 5 minutes. I prefer to shake the pan gently to roll the meatballs around, rather than using a spoon (they hold their shape better).

When they are browned but NOT cooked through, carefully transfer them onto a plate.

Heat 1 tbsp of olive oil into the fry pan. Add the onion and garlic and saut&eacute; for 2 to 3 minutes until translucent. Add the remaining Sauce ingredients. Bring to a simmer, then turn down to medium low so it bubbles gently rather than splattering everywhere.

Carefully transfer the meatballs and any juices that have pooled on the plate into the Sauce.

Serve the meatballs on pasta, garnished with extra Parmigiano-Reggiano and parsley if using.

Notes

1. Plain white sandwich bread is best for this, but you can substitute with other breads. Tear them into small pieces with your hands, and do not include the crust. You can use slightly stale bread.

If you prefer, you can substitute with ½ cup breadcrumbs - preferably panko. But the meatballs won’t be as soft!

2. Pork is slightly fattier than beef so it helps make these extra juicy. I only use 3½ oz / 100 g because pork has less flavour than beef and I don’t want to dilute the flavour. This isn’t hugely critical though and you should feel free to just use 1 lb / 500 g beef mince which is what I do on ordinary nights. :)

3. You can substitute with 1½ tbsp dried parsley, or a mix of equal amounts of dried oregano, thyme, basil and parsley. You could also use an Italian herb mix if you wanted to.

4. Tomato passata is just pureed tinned tomatoes. Nowadays it is readily available in supermarkets, usually alongside pasta sauces. It costs just a tiny bit more, sometimes the same, as canned tomatoes. If you can’t find it, puree canned tomatoes or use crushed canned tomatoes. It’s great because you don’t need to cook it as long as crushed tomatoes in order for it to break down into a thick tomato sauce.

5. Here’s how I roll meatballs - measure out heaped tablepoons of mixture and pop them onto a plate with the flick of your wrist. Repeat with all the mixture. THEN wet your hands slightly and roll them one by one. I find this faster than measuring and rolling each one separately. :) Don’t over roll them! They will become tough!

6. Nutrition per serving assuming 5 servings, meatballs only.

Seth saysthis may be the secret which i seek …

1. Bread is the secret to soft, moist meatballs. Really, it is! Not breadcrumbs. Bread. Plain sandwich bread. Soak to soften, then it literally disintegrates when it’s mixed through the meat. My theory for why they make the meatballs so light and fluffy is that similar to french toast (and regular readers know what a french toast fiend I am), the soaked bread expands when cooked and so it sort of separates the beef mince (ground beef), almost creating little air pockets in the meatballs.

see⬆︎

Seth says
Well they certainly were #MoistMeatballs

… er, almost too moist. denise said she wanted her balls firmer. #IAgree i think i’ll some dry breakcurms in the next batch, still uncooked in the fridge.

Seth says#btw nathan the hyperlinks to tag rooms elsewhere on the top of each tag room should respect the different syntaxes in the different rooms. I originally blogged the syntaxes and how they were suppose to work … see “Linking fastblogit tags to other sites” was back in tagrooms . Currently some of them are generating the hyperlink incorrectly … eg #MoistMeatballs should go to going to “Moist Meatballs” and not to “MoistMeatballs”.

Seth says
added some dry breakcrums … fried up much better … still moist but not so very soft.